The Great Digital Debate (Burgess Hall, St Ives, 10.10.08) successfully brought together local businesses, authorities and the regulator Ofcom to consider broadband, mobile and public broadcasting needs in our region.

The event considered the regions apparent performance, the reality for local businesses and communities and how to advance into the future. The real benefit of the meeting was its contribution towards cross disciplinary communication and planning, to ensure the future of better mobile, broadband & Public Service provision for the unique geography, infrastructure and demographics of the East of England.

The meeting had grown out of contact between telecommunications expert and company director Terry Downing, in his wider role acting on behalf of the Huntingdonshire Business Network (HBN), and Ofcom, with the inclusion of the Huntingdonshire District Council (HDC). The event attracted in excess of 60 delegates from business and organisations, and was introduced by Councillor Andrew Hansard, who had a professional interest as the Economic Development and portfolio holder for the HDC.

Ofcom regulates TV, radio, telecommunications and wireless communications, as Graham Howell (Head of Nations and Regions – Director England, Ofcom) explained. Governed by the Communications Act of 2003 its 250 duties covered 850 regulations of this market! Broadband and mobile are dramatically growing and changing sectors within Ofcom’s remit, on which it keeps a close eye through continuing research.

The initial surge to enable national and regional connection to these services has entered a second stage, where the consumer is becoming increasingly educated and aware of the potential and limitations of existing provision. As a nation we are somewhat down the league in broadband speeds and there are still regional differences. The East of England would at first glance appear to be in the forefront of technology uptake.

In 1996, EEDA celebrated the potential for 99.7% of our residents to gain access to broadband and we now have a 67% uptake with 78% PC ownership. Figures suggest that broadband download speeds are averaging in excess of 5MB/s in some of our towns and cities. Mobile coverage too is such that most centres are covered by three or more networks.

These rosy figures however hide a different reality as experienced by many of the attendees. Our region is unique in terms of dispersed small cities, market towns within a large rural area. Whilst centres have good service provision, a distance of two or more miles can have a dramatic effect on Broadband delivery, and you can appreciate the relatively slow service experienced by those at a distance of 20km or more from a distribution centre. We were astounded to hear that local new developments such as Cambourne, conceived within this digital and communications age, had in parts a really poor provision, which even affected mobile communication for members of the County Council staff.

The frustration and real anger extended to the poor service provision by the providers and dominated the majority of the afternoon’s debates. In excess of 80% of the regions businesses are micro or small companies who could be seriously impacted by delays caused, for example, by a 2 – 3 day response time for first team to arrive to dig hole in road, repair or trouble shooting team to arrive next day and for hole to filled in the day afterwards!

Amongst the many solutions proposed to problems identified in the discussion groups were; an existing code of practice for broadband providers to give a more accurate description of the realistic and accurate connection speeds that could be delivered to potential clients, dependent on location; a suggestion that pricing should be linked to delivered product, not maximum theoretical speeds; minimum standards, e.g. 0.5MB/s download for domestic and 1MB/s for business customers (also see below comments on entertainment and youth impact on markets).

But what of the future? Jan Pinkerton (Head of Business IT, EEDA) spoke again of the vision of making the East of England a leader in the digital economy. In an uncanny parallel to the road infrastructure issues (e.g. A14) bedevilling business growth, the digital ecosystem infrastructure also has to be developed to permit growth without social exclusion and widening of gap between socially disadvantaged and rich, between towns & cities and the rural environment in which they sit. Renewal of existing copper cabling with fibre optics and expansion of the cable networks are essential but likely to take decades, with little incentive to progress at an equal speed in the more rural areas. Similarly, mobile companies will need encouragement from the local agencies to divert from purely commercial considerations in their provision to other targeted socio-economically considered areas.

However, the wireless technologies do have the potential as tools for a faster targeted response in upgrading our technological communication needs. Some participants were already using mobile access to broadband, which has become an expanding commercial product in the past 6 months. Others pointed to WiMax, a similar standardised wireless technology that was able to rapidly deliver communication in Aceh, in the aftermath of the Indonesian Tsunami. Indeed Pakistan has rapidly implemented the largest network to date and it is apparently also used in Canada for provision to more distant areas.

Richard Wishart of Delivery Management, who is a world renowned expert in business applications of wireless technologies such as RFID and budding futurologist, submitted a letter proposal to the Digital Debate, calling for a wireless County Area Network, starting with Huntingdonshire that would enable the leap into a less painful and frustrating digital future.

One telling fact haunted my mind – Ofcom’s statistics show that the younger generations are drifting away from conventional broadcasting such as TV and Radio to the internet and mobile. Their expectations for entertainment, information, music and gaming have been driving the technologies in PC and mobile design and are similarly pushing for dramatic increases in the speed of and breadth of broadband and internet provision.

My personal addition to the day’s debate is therefore that we, businesses, regional organisations and Ofcom, should reach out to engage these groups in our digital debates. You can count me and HBN in, to achieve this new objective in partnership with local businesses, organisations, schools and Ofcom.

Dr Chris Thomas,

Director Milton Contact Ltd (www.miltoncontact.com )

Committee member HBN (www.hbn.org.uk )